


Bringing Stupid Back

by Gang_Aft_Agley



Series: Superheroes, Scooby Style [6]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Laughs for the first time, Gen, Nightmares, PTSD, Pizza, Sparring, Steve gets his ass handed to him, but it's ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-15 18:12:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7233280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gang_Aft_Agley/pseuds/Gang_Aft_Agley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers is an idiot, and bites off more than he can chew.</p><p>Buffy and Natasha take full advantage of this fact.</p><p>Clint and Sam laugh at his pain.</p><p>Bucky's seen this a few too many times before.</p><p>Pizza Dog wants pizza.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bringing Stupid Back

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, I know very little about PTSD or treatment thereof; I just had this scene pop into my head and had to put it into words.
> 
> Completely un-beta'd, all mistakes mine.

"This may be, hands down, the absolute _stupidest_  thing Steve has ever done," Clint remarked idly as he hopped up to sit on the pommel horse in the Tower gym, choosing a spot with the best possible view.  

"Stupider than jumping out of plane without a parachute, or dropping his shield in the middle of the Helicarrier fight?" Sam challenged as he took a swig from his water bottle.

Clint considered his options for a moment as Steve blocked a foot to the face and grabbed the ankle attached to said foot with a feral grin of triumph, preparatory to launching its owner across the room. Before that could happen, however, he spectacularly failed to block a completely _different_ foot to the kidney and went down, _hard;_ both observers visibly winced in sympathy _._ While Steve struggled to his feet, his opponents backflipped gracefully out of reach and came up grinning, clearly ready for more.  Clint turned slightly, raising one interrogative eyebrow, and Sam bowed his head in acknowledgement.

"You know what, never mind; he's a dumbass of the highest degree, and I almost feel like I should go upstairs, right now, and compose a heartfelt eulogy to the soon-to-be-deceased Captain America, done in by his own hubris and inability to quit anything, ever."

"Ten bucks says they _actually_ kill him."  

Sam cocked his head to the side speculatively as Steve went flying across the room, narrowly missing the heavy bag and luckily hitting the _padded_ wall opposite. 

" _Ouch_. No bet."

* * * * *

In Steve's defense, it had been one of Bucky's _really_  bad days; they were less frequent now that he was actually _talking_ to Buffy and his other therapists (who now included Clint Barton, walking human disaster, angels and ministers of grace preserve us... ), but they still happened from time to time. 

Steve himself was all too familiar with aftereffects of screaming nightmares, even though neither of them actually _screamed_ very often: pained whimpering, torn bedsheets, and the occasional busted headboard or bedside lamp were far more common symptoms.  He'd asked FRIDAY to alert him during the night if Bucky was having a bad night, but since Bucky also usually refused any kind of comfort in the immediate aftermath, all that did was guarantee that _both_ of them were sleep-deprived, off-balance and cranky the next day.  Steve would be exhausted, fretful, and helpless; Bucky would be equally exhausted, watchful, and completely silent.  He wouldn't _quite_ retreat back into the feral feline shell he'd had when he first came to the Tower, but for several hours he would be pretty damn close.

Thus, when Buffy arrived for her scheduled visit (hurrah for perfect timing, universe), he'd dragged an armchair into the one corner of the common area where he could see all the entrances and exits, and was huddled in it with his knees tucked up under his chin.  Steve, meanwhile, was doing a terrible job of pretending to watch baseball on TV, but was really casting not-at-all-surreptitious worried glances over his shoulder every few minutes (the Yankees were playing, which just went to show where his attention really was). 

It took Buffy about three seconds after she walked in to realize a) that she wasn’t going to get Bucky into their usual meeting room, b) that he wasn’t moving from his chosen vantage point, and c) that Steve wasn’t going to leave them alone, not for love or money. Accepting with grace what she couldn’t change, she simply plopped down cross-legged on the carpet at Bucky's feet and started gently probing him about last night's dreams, periodically asking Steve for his input.

After an hour of both sullen silence and an utter refusal to meet anyone's eyes, Buffy gave the day's session up as a bad job, and left Bucky alone with popcorn and the first season of Leverage. Then, because she had failed with one super-soldier and her therapeutic/mother-hen energy was still running at high speed, she dragged Steve off to the gym by his ear with strict orders to get the endorphins flowing and work off his "bff-grumpies-by-proxy".  

He'd obliged with a mock-salute and a smart "Yes, _ma'am",_ knowing that she was probably right; at the very least, he could maybe wear himself out enough to take a nap.  He wasn’t alone in the gym: Sam and Clint were taking turns spotting each other on the free weights. Unfortunately for his current state of mind, neither of them were ever willing to spar with him ("Yeah, no, super-soldier, do I _look_  like I have a death wish?"), so he had to make do with the heavy bag.

Still, the solitary workout was meditative in its own way, the solid thuds of his fists against the bag sufficient to drown out all the noise inside his head for a short time. It took him awhile to notice anything out of the ordinary, but eventually female voices and girlish giggling drew him out of the trance-like state he had slipped into. 

Buffy and Natasha were out on the mats, running through hold-and-escape techniques in slow motion; Sam and Clint were trying (and failing) to be subtle, but their ogling had gotten pretty obvious.  Not _too_ obvious, though, because Clint’s self-preservation instincts might have been totally deficient when it came to challenging mobsters and jumping off of buildings, but when it came to Natasha, well … let’s just say he liked his balls right where they were, thank you kindly.

Unwrapping his hands, Steve wandered over, debating internally whether he wanted to drink a cup of water or just dump it over his head; he’d worked up a pretty good sweat. Unfortunately, excess adrenaline was still thrumming through his veins, leaving him itchy and unsettled in his own skin.

“Hey, if either of you ladies want a break, I’m more than happy to tag in.”

Slayer and Widow exchanged significant looks, grinned maliciously at each other, and launched themselves at him in eerie synchronization. Steve barely had time to brace for impact before they were on top of him.

 _Oh, God, I have made a HUGE mistake_.

Natasha’s fighting style was at least familiar: lithe and sneaky, consistently ducking up inside his larger reach, and finding new and painful ways to use his superior height and weight against him.   Steve still never found it exactly _easy_ to anticipate her moves and counter them, but even making the attempt was business as usual.

Buffy, however, proved to be a revelation: like fighting Bucky all over again in some ways, and _completely_ different in others. Strength and speed and determination to match his, only wrapped in a smaller, more acrobatic package. She punched all out of proportion to her size, too, and held absolutely _nothing_ back - a woman used to fighting for her life every single time. Seriously, there was no way someone that little could hit that _hard_ , at least according to all the laws of physics that Steve was familiar with, but apparently magic had its own rules, and _ow,_ tiny pointy elbow to the solar plexus!

Aside from their combined fighting skill (which would have been bad enough, because even he could see that two plus two equaled PAIN in this case), he hadn’t expected their almost psychic levels of coordination, to a degree he hadn’t ever achieved with _any_ of his teammates, even with years of training behind him. Then again, the Black Widow program apparently had been yet another attempt to make an artificial Slayer (much like the serum flowing through his own veins), so he probably should have. Another crucial mistake on his part, one he would not be making again, but he _was_ going to find a way to make use of it should Buffy ever accompany the Avengers out in the field.

Even facing those considerable odds, Steve held his own and stayed mostly on his feet until they completely subverted both his expectations and Captain America’s supposed tactical genius. He knew what _he_ would have done in their shoes: at some point, he would have had Buffy use her Slayer strength to launch Natasha up in the air the way he had during the Battle of New York. From there she could come at him from above, take him down that way while Buffy used brute force to attack him from below.

Instead, _Natasha_ went low, trying to sweep his legs out from under him; he dodged easily enough, but it proved to be a feint as Buffy took advantage of his distraction and his necessary moment of less-than-ideal-balance to vault off Natasha’s shoulder and hit him high. One leg hooked under his armpit and the other caught him around the neck as she twisted in mid-air, driving them both to the ground.

Steve hit the mat with a thud that knocked all the air out of his lungs, and everything went dark for a heartbeat or two, probably from lack of oxygen. When he came back to himself again, he was pinned flat on his back, gasping and wheezing with a hundred pounds of Slayer sitting on his chest. One of Buffy’s hands was clenched in his hair, tipping his head back uncomfortably; she held the edge of the other one against his exposed throat, clearly poised to fracture his larynx if he so much as twitched in a way she disapproved of. Somewhere off to the side, Sam and Clint started to applaud, and the corner of Natasha’s mouth is quirked upwards in a smug little smirk he had come to know (and hate) all too well.

“On your left?” Buffy asked, flushed and grinning beneath an air of assumed innocence; Steve closed his eyes and groaned, thumping his head back against the mat before tapping out. She released his head and neck as Sam made a sound halfway between a snort and a strangled cough. Clint might actually hack up a lung if he laughed any harder.

And that’s when Steve heard it: a low, rusty chuckling from the doorway. 

“You know, I think you _like_ getting hit.”

Bucky had propped himself nonchalantly against the doorframe with his arms crossed. His eyes sparkled with suppressed mischief, and he looked far more alert than Steve has seen him in months, lips curled in the shit-eating grin last seen in 1945.

“At least this smells better than that alley behind the movie theater,” he groaned again, a little more theatrically this time. Buffy took the hint and rolled off of him; when she offered him a hand up, he took it, grateful for the assistance. “You plan on punching Buffy and Tasha, too? Send them off with a kick in the pants?”

Bucky eyed the girls up and down, reading the arch of Natasha’s eyebrow and the set of Buffy’s hands on her hips before deciding that in this case, discretion was clearly the better part of valor. So, no, he didn’t attack, because he was traumatized, not stupid. Instead, he sauntered further into the gym (a place he had steadfastly refused to enter before now), and slung an arm around Steve’s shoulders, still laughing.

“Nah, I’d leave that part to you, except you tried and failed miserably. Still biting off more than you can chew; you never learn. And here I thought _I_ was taking all the stupid with me, punk." 

“ _Clearly_ , you brought some of it back home, jerk.” Bucky poked (none too gently) at the spot on Steve’s cheekbone where a bruise was rapidly darkening, and kept grinning even as Steve swatted his hand away. “Stop that! Rapid healing or not, it still hurts like hell, and not just there, either. Urgh, I want a hot shower, a couple of ice packs, and a cold beer … not necessarily in that order.”

Bucky’s smile softened a little, sweetened into something gentler and less mocking.

“Pizza, too?” he asked hopefully, nudging Steve forward a few steps closer toward the door.

As if on cue, Lucky darted up, dancing around their feet with happy little barks. He wasn’t technically supposed to be in the gym, it wasn’t exactly safe most of the time, but Clint’s sporadic attempts at discipline had done nothing to discourage him … especially after someone said the magic word. By this point, they’d all given up on training him out of it.

So, Steve just grinned back, nudged Lucky away with his foot, and let Bucky shove him toward the locker rooms to get that shower.

“Sure, buddy. Pizza, too. Soon as I get cleaned up.” Steve paused for a moment on the threshold, realizing that the one-eyed gluttonous mutt was now glued to his hip, matching his pace step for step, begging face at full power. “Clint, call off your damn dog!”


End file.
